Dolphins Sign QB Kevin O'Connell to a 1 Year Contract

A little Henne-itis? He makes Chad Henne look like Joe Montana.

 

The plan all along. True genius at work here.

 

Whoever they are, they make me sick. SICK I TELL YA!

 

Has anyone really watched this video of O'Connell being picked on draft day?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgF4577yAYo

Talk about reasons 1) and 1a) why I hate draft coverage. Everything gets so whitewashed, especally a Belichick pick. Kevin O'Connell's gonna look great in a preseason game or two and then the Pats are going to sell him for a 1st round pick. Right.

It's like when the Finsiders had me do a radio interview recently to talk about Pat Devlin and Nic Grigsby. Jeff Darlington was a guest co-host. After I hung up, he took issue with my saying Devlin's got a weak arm for an NFL starter, below average. He pulls up something Mike Mayock said once upon a time about Devlin like "He has enough arm strength" or his "His arm strength is pretty good..." and immediately is like "I know Mike Mayock knows his stuff and he thinks Devlin's got plenty of arm strength..."

Let me de-code that for you. When a mainstream draftnik likes a QB,

1. If he says, "His arm is one of the most physically gifted we've seen" he means that he's probably in the top 5 among NFL starters for arm strength

2. If he says, "He has a howitzer hanging off his right shoulder" he means that he's above average among NFL starters

3. If he says nothing at all about arm strength, he means he's got an average to slightly below average NFL starter's arm

4. If he says, "I think he's got good enough arm strength," or "He's got plenty of arm?" (with the little turn in the pitch of his voice at the end of the statement making it sound defensive), this means the guy has below average arm strength for a starting QB

That's just the way it is. The median NFL starter has arm strength that at one point was probably identified as a "cannon" by someone covering him at the college level. But the evaluators on TV whitewash everything so they're never willing to identify who really has below average arm strength, unless it's a guy they really don't like.

 

35 of 74 for 320 yards, 1 TD and 6 INTs in three preseasons. And all three preseasons were damn near identical, so it's not like just one bad showing ruined it all.

 

That's the easy and kind of lazy (no offense) way out.

You ought to put more store in it, where a QB is concerned. In the preseason, things are generally EASIER for QBs, not harder.

I've done studies on all the QBs that have played significant amount of time the last two or three years, looked at all their preseason QB ratings since 2006 (first year NFL.com started to track the preseason stats). There's a pretty clear trend when you stack it up. Bad preseason performers at QB are generally bad QBs. There's only one QB out there that is considered a franchise guy, who has had a sub-85 preseason QB rating. That's Matt Cassel. And after his playoff performance there are people in KC thinking he's not really a franchise guy and they'll never win with him.

The mistake would be assuming it goes the other way around. It doesn't. Like I said, things are generally easier in the preseason for QBs than the regular season. You have guys like Tarvaris Jackson, Drew Stanton, Matt Leinart and Josh Johnson who are consistent preseason performers but who have dubious records during the regular season.

In other words, a QB being good in the preseason doesn't necessarily mean he's a good QB. I think it's a good sign but it's not a strong sign. However, a QB being bad in the preseason is a strong sign that he's a bad QB, period.

Here's a list of the QBs I compiled with above-85 preseason QB Ratings:

Josh Freeman
Aaron Rodgers
Peyton Manning
Drew Stanton
Tom Brady
Drew Brees
Matt Schaub
Phil Rivers
Jon Kitna
Jay Cutler
Matt Hasselbeck
Carson Palmer
Matthew Stafford
Joe Flacco
David Garrard
Tarvaris Jackson
Donovan McNabb
Matt Leinart
Seneca Wallace
Eli Manning
Ben Roethlisberger
Caleb Hanie
Tony Romo
Josh Johnson
Matt Ryan

Now here is the list of the sub-85 preseason QB Rating guys.

Trent Edwards
Rex Grossman
Ryan Fitzpatrick
John Beck
Brady Quinn
Matt Flynn
Matt Cassel
Kyle Orton
Vince Young
Mark Sanchez
Chad Henne
Derek Anderson
Kevin Kolb
Jason Campbell
Charlie Whitehurst
Alex Smith
Marc Bulger
Troy Smith
Tyler Thigpen
Shaun Hill
Matt Moore

You don't have to be a mathematician to see the trend there.

 

I suppose Trent Edwards is worthy of having such a line named after him, lol.

 

Ryan Fitzpatrick and Kyle Orton are not franchise QBs. Even backers of the Orton trade admit this. Neither is going to give you a 90+ regular season QB Rating with any kind of regularity, if ever at all. Mark Sanchez only had one preseason counted in the study and so he's got time to turn it up, for sure. But there are NO SHORTAGE of people who doubt he ever will be a true franchise QB. He's been little more than a passenger on the success of his first two seasons. You can quote me the price tag on Kevin Kolb, who has performed all in all even worse than Chad Henne in his regular season games, but you'll have to wake me up when he actually does well and then I'll grant him to you as a second exception aside from Matt Cassel.

As for Marc Bulger, he hasn't performed like a franchise QB since...when exactly? 2006 was the very last time he actually performed like a real good QB, and he's been crap since. Unsurprisingly, he had a preseason QB rating ABOVE 85 in 2006, the very last year he actually performed well during the regular season. Since then his preseason stats came crashing down, and so did his regular season stats.

 

His is a silly argument. What he deems to "matter" and not matter is arbitrary. Preseason games aren't going to win you the Super Bowl. But we're talking about predictors of performance. I guess college doesn't matter, as deemed by the NFL, and so we should draft by blindfolding ourselves and throwing darts at a dartboard. Because, why watch how players perform in games that don't matter?

 

Yes, except there's actually TALENT-based reasons to believe it this time around, rather than saying it simply because the Patriots did it, which was the case that year.

 

And actually Tarvaris Jackson has a good QB Rating in the regular season the last three years if you add it all up, I believe.